3. From Historicizing to the Obsolescence of War

This chapter concerns the thought of economists on war, as an event linked to the political and economic conditions of the time. Friedrich List in the early part of the 1800s looked at the economic situation of the German states and the need for them to unite politically and develop economically, to be achieved, if required, though conflict too. List criticized Smith’s economics and the free traders in general who wanted to substitute “national and popular sovereignty” by the “presumed universal laws” of free trade. All in all, the same argument was employed by the German historical school and professorial socialism. Sombart held that the development of capitalism was linked to war as the latter greatly increased demand, the essential condition for growth. Furthermore, during crises single nation’s economic interests prevail over international ones and a common interest does not really exist, as free traders maintained. Schumpeter, who believed in the pacifist vocation of industrial society, on the other hand considered war to be atavism, a throwback to preindustrial society where an unproductive nobility gained wealth though violence and war loot.